


As I Surrender Unto Sleep

by Jh3richo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 23:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19413910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jh3richo/pseuds/Jh3richo
Summary: The first time Fareeha heard the piano, she thought she was imagining it.She was coming off a twenty-six hour day with little to no rest and taking a shortcut back to her room through the abandoned part of the Watchpoint. There wasn't any reason for anyone else to be in this area, nor was there any reason for there to be a piano of all things.





	As I Surrender Unto Sleep

The first time Fareeha heard the piano, she thought she was imagining it.

She was coming off a twenty-six hour day with little to no rest and taking a shortcut back to her room through the abandoned part of the Watchpoint. There wasn't any reason for anyone else to be in this area, nor was there any reason for there to be a _piano_ of all things.

But as she grew closer and the sound became clearer, she began doubting herself. Her mind was too tired to focus, her feet betraying her aching body and turning her in the direction of the music.

Sure enough, she discovered the instrument and it's companion crammed in a room with various pieces of office furniture.

Angela sat slouched on the piano bench, one hand resting on the keyboard and slowly grazing the keys. The gentle melody she played put chills on Fareeha's arms and brought her to lean forward into the room from the door frame, mesmerized by the song and by how smoothly the doctor played it.

It came to an abrupt halt when her fingers missed a key and a sour note _ping-_ ed out sorely. Angela huffed to herself and tugged her hand away from the piano, her fingers tapping against her thigh rhythmically.

“I didn't know you could play piano” Fareeha commented, cringing at how loud her voice sounded compared to the soft whisper of the music.

The doctor swiveled sharply, flinching at the other woman and slamming the fallboard over the keys.

They stared in silence for a moment, Fareeha at Angela and Angela at a spot on the floor. Pushing herself off the bench and tucking her hands into the deep pockets of her trousers, Angela kept her eyes low as she ducked past Fareeha and out the door.

“I don't.” She replied flatly.

Fareeha was left hovering in the doorway, glancing from the piano to the doctor's fleeing back and equally curious of both.

She asked Winston about the instrument later, casually mentioning how she remembered one from childhood and wondered what happened to it. He shook his head and lamented how it had been previously owned by one of the commanding officers and abandoned after the shutdown.

“It's somewhere in storage, I'm sure.” Winston said, “It's a shame, I remember hearing it too.”

Fareeha pondered Angela's parting words for days, wanting to knock on her door and ask further questions but knowing better than to bother the reclusive woman.

Ever since the doctor joined the recall she had kept to herself, staying behind the closed doors of her room and office and seldom leaving her lonely sanctuaries. No one else had questioned her agoraphobic tendencies, so Fareeha took it as normal and shrugged it off.

She brought the situation up during a conversation over drinks with Jesse, hoping the cowboy would have some blurry information about the piano.

“I can't recall, but I wouldn't be surprised.” Jesse rumbled, “Ziegler's a classy lady, she's probably gotta shit-ton of other snooty hobbies. Probably writes poetry and gardens.”

Fareeha laughed it off at the time but continued thinking about it, still unsure how to broach the subject. They weren't exactly friends; the most interaction they had was during training and missions. Even then, those interactions were limited to Fareeha trying to break the ice and end the awkward silence between them.

Her attempts always fell flat, with Angela either not paying any attention or flat out ignoring her jokes. It was tiring to try so hard, so Fareeha had given up on being trying to be chummy and kept their communication strictly professional.

There was always something so distant about the doctor that intrigued Fareeha before, but the piano was the catalyst. She was practically fidgeting for answers, keeping her eyes and ears open for anything.

Her walk to and from the gym took her longer than before because she would walk through the empty section of the base, straining to hear any music and disappointed by the silence.

The second time she heard it, Fareeha quickened her pace until she got to the door, once again leaning through the entrance and peeking in like a child.

Sure enough, it was Angela seated at the piano. Both of her hands were on the keys this time, moving faster than before and playing a new song. The refrain would have sounded as gentle and soothing as the one before had it not been for how forcefully Angela pressed the keys.

Her movements seemed almost aggressive as she went, more and more mistakes further sullying the melody which in turn made the tempo increase. And then suddenly, she paused, her hands lifting off the keys slightly and hovering over different ones quickly. She set them down to make a new cord only to quickly choke the sound and try another one, repeating the process before angrily back-tracking to the previous melody only to hesitate at the same spot again.

Angela dropped her fists on the keys and irately growled through her teeth, hitting them one more time then putting her elbow on the keyboard and resting her cheek against her fist. Her free hand returned to the keys and played a portion of the first refrain again, this time much slower.

Fareeha took a cautious step into the room and cleared her throat, startling the doctor for the second time. Instead of getting up and leaving, Angela turned back to the piano and resumed her repetition.

Taking it as a sign to stay, Fareeha walked to stand beside the instrument, admiring the dusty lid and yellowing keys.

“I used to play.” Angela's voice was soft, nearly drown by her own playing, “I loved my lessons and my instructor. I loved the piano and the music. It was so precious to me, a special interest of sorts. I was even writing something of my own.” She nodded to melody, “That. But I can't remember it anymore.”

“Why'd you stop playing?” Fareeha asked.

With a slight shake of her head, Angela dragged her fingers off the instrument to study it. “I gave up.” She answered.

Nodding along and putting the pieces together, Fareeha leaned against the piano and clarified, “You gave up for medicine.”

“No.”

Angela stood and put her hands back into her pockets, meeting Fareeha's eyes only once before looking at her own feet. She grimaced and sighed out quickly with a lame shrug, “I just gave up.”

Fareeha narrowed her brows at the implication, unsure of what exactly it meant but unable to ignore the heavy weight in her stomach that sank lower and lower.

“I don't remember much of the technical aspects,” Angela murmured wistfully, “but I remember how it made me feel. Music was my voice when I didn't have words. And I can't find it again. It's just gone.”

“I'm sorry.” Fareeha said faintly, mildly uncomfortable at the conversation and revelation.

“You shouldn't apologize; it isn't your fault.”

“I mean I'm sorry for...what happened.”

“So am I.” Angela meandered towards the door as she spoke, “You know, I've spent so much time apologizing for what I did that it's almost second nature to say 'I'm sorry' to people I've never met before. Like they'd know just by looking at me.”

Fareeha was left in the room with the piano. She stayed with it for a few minutes more, sitting at it's bench and brushing her fingers across it's smooth keys in mindless patterns. The chilly ivory beneath her fingertips blossomed goose flesh up her arms and reminded her of the first song she heard, humming it to herself.

A weighted sorrow stayed in her chest every time she thought of the piano after that.

She couldn't help but grow quieter around the doctor, hesitant and unsure of what to say now that she knew such information. Fareeha watched her more carefully now, cataloging the ways Angela would carry herself in certain situations and trying her best to step in when she could.

Her helpful demeanor seemed appreciated, and Fareeha took it as a cue to continue. She would offer to do things in Angela's place to keep the other woman in safer conditions or would be the first person to volunteer to assist the doctor directly with anything she needed.

It came to a head one night when Fareeha inserted herself in Angela's office with the insistence that she help her unpack new supplies. After a brief period of reiteration, the doctor threw her hands up and made to leave.

She stopped right before turning out of the door and glanced back at Fareeha with a surprising expression of humiliation. “I've been treated with this sort of... _fragility,_ since I was little. Doted on, watched carefully, constantly pushed in certain directions because I surely can't make decisions for myself. And it really makes me...tired.”

Fareeha let her go, digesting the words and berating herself for acting so stupidly. She finished her self-imposed task of 'helping' before escaping to her own room to stew in embarrassment.

The new questions plaguing her mind were centered around how she should apologize. The silence around them was heavy and lingering now, staying with Fareeha long after they returned from missions. She longed for something to fill the void, for the music to come back and take away the quiet.

She'd roam the halls more often, her treks by the piano growing longer and longer each day. She'd pass the door multiple times in one walk, always willing there to be music coming from it.

But it stopped. The piano sat in silence, lustrous in the sunlight that crept into the room from boarded windows, collecting further dust that danced among the sunbeams to a silent chorale.

Fareeha would sometimes duck into the room and sit at the piano bench. She would never touch the instrument, not even to lift the fallboard and expose the damaged keys to the sunlight. It felt forbidden to touch, too sacred for her to disturb.

Days became weeks, weeks into months, and the silence too came to pass.

Words came easily, mindless chatter of mundane things gradually growing louder and more likely between the two. When the conversations would fall back into quiet, Fareeha would find the apology she wanted to say stuck inside her throat.

The apologies never sounded right. They were always just off enough to not _be_ enough, the thoughts becoming a cacophonous dissonance that couldn't arrange with anything. The noise inside her head would drown out the silence around her and make her feel suffocated.

“You know,” Angela mentioned to her during transit from a mission, “I quite like this.”

Frowning, Fareeha cleared her throat to slowly ask, “The traveling or the mission?”

“Neither. I mean _this_ –” She gestured to the air between them with a slight smile, “I like _this_.”

Fareeha gawked at her and chuckled nervously. “Do you think you could explain a little more what _this_ is?”

Angela pressed her lips into a line and thought, her fingers dropping to her lap to drum along. “Comfortable silence.” She finally settled on, “It's nice to have comfortable silence with someone else. We can talk, but don't have to keep talking. It's nice, the two of us just sitting together. I like it.”

Perplexed at the admission and feeling a familiar guilt returning, Fareeha admitted quietly, “I wish I could be as relaxed as you. I feel like I have to say something, but I just can't and then I feel...stupid.”

“Don't feel stupid. If it means anything, I appreciate that you actually _don't_ say anything.”

Grinning and dramatically pressing a hand to her chest, Fareeha feigned a shocked gasp and said, “So I'm only good enough for you when I shut up, huh? What about my jokes, my personality, my humble opinions?”

Angela rolled her eyes but laughed. “You are nice to talk to.” She spoke without looking at Fareeha, “But you're also a good listener. I can't explain it really. It's like you listen even when I don't speak. Like you learned from what happened before. It's a nice change of pace.”

The words stayed with Fareeha for the rest of the flight, even as they fell back into their 'comfortable silence'. She tried to think more about the brief conversation but couldn't keep her mind straight.

Coming out of her head and instead focusing on the woman sitting beside her, Fareeha made herself take a deep breath and take in the quiet around them.

It did help her relax and realize what Angela meant by 'comfortable silence'. After a few minutes, she could clear her head and sit a little more lax, not as focused on her racing thoughts and instead on everything else around her.

The ambiance of the dropship, the way the setting sun illuminated the already bright colours of Angela's Valkyrie suit and hair, the way she sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap, the slow rise and fall of her chest, the stoic but freed expression on her face.

Fareeha smiled to herself and studied her own hands, tapping them against her own armor and imagining the metal were the ivory of the piano.

It was the most she had thought of the instrument in months, having long since abandoned her walks and forgotten her hope of hearing it again. But closing her eyes and moving her fingers, Fareeha could almost hear it again from her memory.

She never brought up the piano again. Not even to others. She decided that it would stay between the two of them, inside that storage room, and inside her memory until Angela was ready to speak of it first.

They grew into a routine together, going through the motions of their flight practice and brunch afterwards easily. Adding in midday breaks for coffee and a brief chat before returning to their respective offices came soon after, and then meeting once a week for dinner followed.

Sometimes they would do nothing but talk and sometimes they would sit and bask in one another's company. Through their conversations and their silence, Fareeha found the knee-jerk reaction to apologize fading.

It was all forgotten in the midst of their budding relationship, one that Fareeha committed herself to acting as an equal and not a defender.

The memories were revived when she heard the piano for the third time.

Fareeha had been seeking out a new office chair, her old one far too worn to be comfortable and ready to fall apart. Her trek into the abandoned sector was quick and precise. She was halfway back to her side of the Watchpoint when she heard the music over the rolling wheels of her new chair.

She stopped immediately and whipped her head around. Straining to hear it again, Fareeha held her breath and waited for a sound.

The chair was left in the middle of the hallway. Fareeha started out walking briskly only to increase her pace to jogging, willing herself to make it to the room before the music stopped and willing it to be real.

Sitting with her back to the door and hands moving deftly across the keyboard, Angela played a deep and slow-moving melody. The keys she stroked formed into beautiful chords, one becoming two and two shifting into a sort of imperfect harmony.

The dissonance put goose flesh on Fareeha's arms and brought her to step into the room, taking in the louder music now and slowly moving to stand beside the piano.

Angela glanced up at her and paused, her fingers still pressing and push out one of the discordant chords.

“What are you playing?” Fareeha asked, her voice hushed.

Drifting into another chord, Angela scooted over and lifted one hand off the keyboard to pat at the bench. As Fareeha sat, the blonde resumed the chord. “Something I remember playing when I was younger. It's Whitacre. I played it with an orchestra. We played two of his pieces. The other was my first solo.” Angela stretched her arm across to hit a few keys, testing the melody before starting over.

Fareeha watched her play in awe, looking between her hands and her face. Angela's hands moved with practiced smoothness, keeping a steady rhythm and gentle with her key presses. Her expression was stoic, her eyes trained on the fallboard and glossy as if she were seeing something that wasn't there.

She was fully concentrated on the music, her leg brushing against Fareeha's as she scooted closer to the center of the bench to reach further notes. The dark-haired woman let her go, captivated by the tender feeling in her chest the piano brought about.

There was something so deeply personal about watching Angela play so freely, no sour notes to spoil the poignant harmony, no hesitation in her movements, no shying away from Fareeha's gaze.

Emotion swelled inside Fareeha's chest and rose to her face, throat closed and eyes misty. The music itself was already beautiful, but accompanied by Angela's graceful movements and the knowledge of what it meant specifically to _her_ made it so haunting and tragically heartbreaking.

When it finished and Angela leaned back from the keys, Fareeha released a long breath and whispered, “Wow.”

“I agree.” The blonde chuckled.

Fareeha wiped her eyes and studied the woman next to her carefully. Angela wasn't as physically moved, but the slight smile she wore and the distant look in her eye told enough about how she felt in the moment too.

“You really are amazing, you know.” Fareeha commented with a slight nudge to her leg. “Thank you for letting me listen.”

“I like when you listen.” Angela replied with a shrug. Her hands drifted off the keys to rest on top of Fareeha's, fingers running smoothly across the back of her hand in calming motion. “I honestly didn't think I could actually remember all of that.”

“Do you think you'd like to relearn and play piano again?”

“Maybe someday. But if I'm to be honest, I don't think I want to. It reminds me too much of the past, of what happened before and who I was before. It's sad; I love music, but I don't think I can let go of what it used to mean for me.”

Nodding and maneuvering her hand over to lace their fingers together, Fareeha swayed their hands off the back of the bench and waited for Angela to meet her eyes again. “That's okay,” She spoke with sincerity, “and it's okay if you change your mind later. Would you like to go get some dinner? I know it's not our usual night, but I could make us something if you want.”

Angela smiled gratefully and stood, pulling Fareeha up with her. “That sounds nice.” She said with a sigh, glancing down at the piano momentarily. Her free hand moved to rest atop the keys, her brow pinching in consideration.

Fareeha let her pause and think, giving her hand a light squeeze of reassurance but remaining quiet. Angela's hand lingered a little longer but eventually lifted to gently pull the fallboard down, enclosing the keys inside.

They strolled out of the room, the blonde already discussing what they should eat and entirely engrossed by the thought of food. She kept walking even when Fareeha stopped just outside the door.

Looking inside and taking in the sight of the piano, the otherworldly glow of the sun reflecting off the areas of disturbed dust and unequivocal contrast between it and the other abandoned items of the past, Fareeha made herself turn away from it and close the door to seal off the hallowed image.

She caught up to her partner in just a few strides, retaking her hand and smiling at her enthusiasm at their dinner plans. Their joined voices echoed through the empty halls, their footsteps accenting and countering them as they left the quiet behind.


End file.
